Holbrooke’s Last Words
Richard Holbrooke was apparently preoccupied with his role as the Obama administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan until the very end, discussing the ongoing conflicts in those two countries up until he went into surgery for the heart problem that led to his death on Monday. Meanwhile, his successor, at least for now, was named on Tuesday. “Political Hotsheet” on CBS News: In his final words before emergency heart surgery, Richard Holbrooke, the influential U.S. diplomat who died on Monday following complications from the surgery, apparently urged an end to America’s nine-year old Afghanistan conflict. “You’ve got to stop this war in Afghanistan,” Holbrooke apparently told doctors before entering into surgery, according to family members’ accounts originally reported by Washington Post. Later reports note that Holbrooke made the comments during “painful banter” leading up to his surgery—and that they were not necessarily “a serious exhortation about policy.” Read more
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on December 15, 2010. Filed under